Army to investigate spread of chemicals at Watertown site

Friday

The Army Corps of Engineers hopes to conduct another round of soil testing at the contaminated General Services Administration site on Arsenal Street this spring and remove polluted soil next fall.

The Army Corps of Engineers hopes to conduct another round of soil testing at the contaminated General Services Administration site on Arsenal Street this spring and remove polluted soil next fall.

They want to learn how far carcinogenic chemicals have spread.

The federal agency, which owns the site, is accepting written comments on its proposed sampling plans through Wednesday, Nov. 19.

The site, which was once used by the U.S. Army to burn depleted uranium and store various metals, is eligible for funding through its Formerly Used Defense sites status program.

Ellen Iorio, Army Corps project manager for the property, said the cost for sampling or soil cleanup has yet been determined.

Tuesday morning, Iorio and employees of Wakefield-based MACTEC, a contractor hired by the Army Corps of Engineers, discussed the status of the Arsenal Street site at a public meeting in the Town Hall.

About 15 people attended the meeting, including Town Councilors Susan Falkoff and John Hecht, Watertown Conservation Commission members and residents living near the site.

“It’s been dragging on,” Coolidge Avenue resident Don Elliott said of the site’s cleanup process. “Nobody seems to be coming up with a conclusion.”

David Heislein, principal project manager for MACTEC, gave an overview of site testing over the last 20 years. Different tests revealed contaminants including heavy metals, petroleum compounds, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are produced as byproducts of fuel burning.

The site is not radioactive.

The latest round of testing, the results of which were made public at this morning’s meeting, built upon a study of the site in 2007.

The 2007 study identified a new contaminant — polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, a class of organic compounds that were added to oils at the site to make them fire-resistant — as being a cause for concern.

As a result, the Army Corps of Engineers recommended additional subsurface investigations to define the horizontal and vertical extent of the PCBs contained in soil and wetlands.

Investigators wanted to see how deep the PCB contamination went. They found no elevated PCB levels deeper than three feet underground.

The radius of the PCBs was not determined because samples at the edge of the testing area, mostly around the former burn site, had elevated PCB levels.

Thus, the Army Corps of Engineers proposes more sampling outside of those areas to determine the boundaries of PCB contamination.

With that information, a complete risk assessment of the site can be completed.

That is necessary to determine what are acceptable uses of the site. Currently the state Department of Conservation and Recreation is interested in purchasing the site to turn it into parkland.

Some people at Tuesday’s meeting wished the Army Corps of Engineers would sample for more contaminants at the site, including dioxins, and could seek federal funding for cleanup of the site’s buildings.

MACTEC employees said they’d consider testing for dioxins, while Iorio said contaminated buildings don’t qualify for federal funding under the defense site program.

Falkoff suggested trying to get a state earmark for that cleanup.

Following the public comment deadline, the Army Corps will solidify sampling plans and request funding for the sampling.

What’s the danger of PCBs?

PCBs can cause cancer and damage the immune, reproductive, nervous and endocrine systems, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Watertown TAB & Press

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